Artist s easel



GB. HOWLAND.

ARTISTS EASEL.

No. 467,653. Patented Jan. 26, 1892.

' imam 5: C

UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

GEORGE BENJAMIN IIOVVLAND, OF PONTIAC, ILLINOIS.

ARTISTS EASEL.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 467,653, dated January 26, 1892. Application filed February 18, 1891. Serial No. 381,970. (No model.)

T0 at whom, it may concern:

Be it known thatI, GEORGE BENJAMIN How- LAND, a citizen of the United States, residing at Pontiac, in the county of Livingston and State of I1li'nois,have invented a newand useful Artists Easel, of which the following is a specification.

My invention relates to improvements'in easels that are provided with sliding racks upon which are placed the canvas or other material used; and the object of my invention is to provide an easel so constructed as to enable artists using it to quickly and conveniently raise or lower the canvas or drawing-board without the use of pins, weights, springs, pulleys, thumb-screws, or other similar devices, all of which are more or less inconvenient and unsatisfactory. This I aocomplish by the use of a sliding rack consisting of a shelf and two upright pieces having a stop or check attached thereto near their vertical center, whereby said rack is firmly held to the easel-frame by contact with a serrated bar of iron or other material centrally located in the easel-frame, as illustrated in the accompanying drawings, in which-- Figure 1 is a perspective view of the entire easel, showing my improvements applied thereto. Fig. 2 is a side elevation of the serrated bar, and Fig. 3 a perspective of the sliding rack with stop or'check attached.

Similarletters referto similar parts throughout the several views.

When the sliding rack is in its proper place on the easel-frame, as shown in Fig. 1, its weight is sustained entirely by the bar A. in the serrations of which rest the stop or check B of the sliding rack, thereby firmly holding the rack in position.

To move the rack npward,it is only necessary for the artist to place a hand under the shelf 0 of the rack and force it upward to any point desired. To move it downward he simply brings the lower part of the rack forward sufficiently-to disengage the stop B from the bar A and allow it to gravitate, as desired. Then it' is carried back against the easelframe, where the stop again rests in the serrations of the bar A.

By locating the stop B near the vertical center of the rack a very slight forward movement of the lower part of the rack relieves the stop B, as the small lugs 61 d prevent any backward movement of the upper end of the I'ftuk.

I do not wish to be confined to the exact construction of the rack as shown in Fig. 3, for one upright piece having a groove for bar A will answer as well and might by some manufacturers be preferred. In either case the upright piece or pieces of rack and main upright pieces of easel-frame present an even surface, so that a stretcher and canvas of much greater vertical length than the rack rests evenly against rack and easel-frame.

What I claim as new, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is

In an easel, the combination, with the main frame having serrated bar A, cent-rally 1ocated therein, of the sliding rack provided with check B-near its vertical center, and

lugs d d at the top of the rack, all constructed substantially as described and illustrated.

GEORGE BENJAMIN HOWLAND.

Witnesses: I EDWIN R. MARTIN, FRED B. HOWLAND. 

